I was going to take a little break from the story for a while to do some more publishing work (finding a publisher for an original fantasy is tough! Gah!) and I couldn't handle another unsolicited submission notice, so I decided to work some more. That probably means bad news for the poor characters; must they always bear the brunt of what I feel? Oh, well, sometimes that makes for good reading! Here we are with another chapter!

I didn't know if I really wanted Stacy to have a confession because I never really talked about her any more than in a passing sentence. But, I thought, what the heck! But, it's not going to be a very long chapter...

(Oh, in Cameron's Confessions chapter, it was supposed to be "couldn't," not "could" when she was talking about her bruise... sorry for the mistake; I was going to go and fix it on my own computer and then resubmit it, but I can't find the original document for some reason... I'll find it and fix it soon, hopefully...) Onward!


Stacy's Confessions

She sat in her office, well after she was allowed to leave for the night, going through paperwork. She estimated that, according to how much Mr. Deleyney was worth in terms of his businesses and personal wealth, the family was going to sue for millions and millions, money the hospital couldn't afford. The hospital would be sued, said Mr. Deleyney's eldest son when he had stormed into Stacy's office, if his father died and, even if he didn't die, there was still a chance the family would sue anyway. So, as Stacy saw it, they would either pay for the death, or they would hang on the edge of a knife, waiting for the family to come to a decision on how much they wanted to squeeze out of the doctors for malpractice.

Damn it, Stacy thought. House just had to go and run his little experiment on one of the richest business men that had ever been treated at the hospital. House had to pick the perfect family to sue the hospital and the doctors that had worked on the case. He had to risk the lives of everyone around him. House didn't even care, Stacy bet, tugging at her hair.

Her eyes hurt from reading the paperwork. Her mind hurt from trying to reason everything out. Her body hurt from stress. Stacy turned off the desk lamp and grabbed her purse, trying to forget the eight digit number that glared at her from the top paper on the stack of folders. She almost walked out the door and ignored it, but turned around and, picking up the paper, slammed it on the desk as hard as she could.

She felt a nail crack and her hand started to sting. Stacy was almost satisfied with her action, but really wished she could just crumple up the paper and burn it, or throw it in a bowl of water, or make House eat it. But, she knew that if she ruined the paperwork and the family found out, that would make things worse. For now, she had to play along and be the lawyer that saved the day. Hopefully.

After bailing Chase out of jail, Stacy wanted to tell him to punch House again, just to kick the lion while he was down, but instead she swore at him the entire ride back so he could get his car from the parking lot. Of course, there was going to be a probationary period for the doctor, but luckily nothing Chase did would cost them money at the moment.

That was all Stacy wanted to care about at the moment: the true cost of money and, if the patient would die, how much money would compensate for the loss to make the family happy. She had the rough estimate, but how much would it really be? How much money would it take until Cuddy finally gave Stacy permission to attack House like Chase had done? She already knew House was fired and that he was coming back the next day to get his things.

Stacy closed her office door behind her, turning her back on the paperwork that basically said they would lose the hospital.


Ouch. I like this chapter because, even though there is talk about suing, seeing everything like Stacy shows how much financial trouble House really caused. Please tell me what you think! I really appreciate all the comments so far! Thanks for reading and I'll update soon!